‘GENUINE ASYLUM CLAIMS’
Data show almost 70% of illegal border-crossers who have been processed are legitimate refugees,
Almost 70 per cent of refugees who illegally cross the U.S. border into Canada are granted asylum here, despite the widespread public view that these border-crossers are not real refugees in need of protection.
The data were released this week for by the Immigration and Refugee Board.
Since January, the RCMP have intercepted more than 15,100 people entering through unguarded border entry points from the United States, after U.S. President Donald Trump came into power and issued a series of executive orders to expedite deportation of foreign nationals and ban immigration from certain countries.
Of the 10,790 asylum claims received from March to September of this year, the refugee board has processed 592, or 5.4 per cent. Of those claims, 69 per cent, or 408 cases, were granted asylum, while 141 were rejected. Forty-three other claims were either abandoned or withdrawn.
The acceptance rate for the bordercrossers is even higher than the 63-per-cent overall rate for asylumseekers in 2016. One expert said the group’s high acceptance rate could be skewed if the refugee board is prioritizing cases from countries that tend to have stronger claims.
However, academics and refugee advocates also emphasize the data show the border-crossers have a legitimate need for protection. “The numbers show that the majority of the so-called bordercrossers have genuine asylum claims. The message I take is that the Canadian refugee system is working. It is doing its job,” Queen’s University immigration and refugee law professor Sharry Aiken said.
Aiken and others are concerned that only a small fraction of the claims have been processed so far.
“The refugee board is underresourced despite the spike in the number of claims,” she said.
The experts also question the validity of the Canada-U.S. Safe Third Country Agreement, which is based on the assumption the two countries have comparable asylum systems and bans refugees from seeking asylum in both.
The agreement doesn’t apply to those who cross into Canada at unmarked points along the border, which critics say encourages asylumseekers to make dangerous treks through no man’s land, most commonly in Quebec, B.C. and Manitoba.
A recent Ipsos poll found many Canadians doubted if border-crossers are legitimate refugees, with 67 per cent saying the migrants were trying to bypass the legal immigration process.
A separate poll by Angus Reid found that 57 per cent of respondents disapproved of Ottawa’s handling of the border-crossers, with 53 per cent of the participants in the survey saying Canada was being “too generous” to the asylum-seekers.
In recent months, the majority of the border-crossers have been Haitians, who have been staying in the U.S. under a special immigration designation by the Department of Homeland Security.
However, their special status is due to expire by the end of the year and the 58,000 Haitians there must leave the U.S.
The refugee board has been pushing for additional resources to deal with surge in claimants, a request that so far has been ignored by Ottawa. On Wednesday, the board took the unusual step of publicizing the processing data of the “irregular” border claims.
“Whether a refugee is admitted at a border crossing or makes a refugee claim after having entered Canada is irrelevant to whether she is in danger in her country,” said Raoul Boulakia, of the Refugee Lawyers Association of Ontario.
“It is troubling that public discourse has fallen into discussing these refugee claimants as if they are different. They are refugee claimants. That means the refugee claimant’s case must be adjudicated fairly and impartially, and the question for the refugee board to answer is whether she is at risk in her country.” Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The refugee board declined to comment about the Safe Third Country Agreement, but said it currently has 40,800 claims in the backlog, in addition to 5,300 pending cases filed under the old rules before December 2012.
Claimants are expected to wait 17 months for an asylum hearing.